Rainy Days and Mondays

Friday it rained buckets and the rain continued all night. Saturday was rainy in the morning and muddy in the afternoon. Sunday we were able to do a little yard work, transplanting bedding plants and the like. Monday it rained again.

Tuesday it dried up enough to do yard work. Hoeing in the orchard is one job Tanya trusts me with as she doesn’t think I will hurt the trees, I guess. Tuesday night every muscle I owned and some I had rented ached. Wednesday we did “light” yard work, like breaking asphalt around the plum tree in our side drive way to make a larger open area around it and trimming large tree branches to make more light for the peonies. I also sprayed what I hope is Malathion or similar (we bought it at the local garden shop) on our fruit trees as we have an infestation of aphids and other unlovely critters.

At 4:00 pm the skies opened once more and it rained. Buckets. Cats and dogs. If you went outside you stepped in a poodle. For a while we thought it would hail taxis. It rained all night but this morning the sky is blue, with a Northwest wind and the day is lovely. Look out orchard, here I come.

I suggested to Tanya that since I was now a village man and had to do all this work, we should get a cow and I could cut hay with a scythe and haul it home on my back all summer like the other men. She said since I was an intellectual, that would be too much hay. We should settle for a goat. When I told Bronwyn, she thought likely a hamster was more within my capabilities. I get no respect.

The Red Peony*

The peonies have been in bloom for some time but the real blossom time is just upon us. The Chinese Peonies (Paeonia lactiflora) are about 10% in bloom and soon every garden will be bursting with huge pink flowers and the cemetery will be covered with them. The first peonies to bloom are the delicate Fernleaf Peonies (Paeonia tenuifolia) . These bright red flowers are visible from quite a distance and mingle with the red tulips in late April. Next to bloom were the Tree or Japanese Peonies (Paeonia suffruticosa). Our neighbour Lucia has two or three bushes with flowers are the size of dinner plates. The picture below was taken in the Botanical Gardens in Kyiv a few years back. At about the same time, I found a few of these rich dark red peonies. They are so lovely but there seem to be only a few of them around our neighbourhood.

The Fernleaf Peony (Paeonia tenuifolia) blooms in late April

The Red Peony

The Tree or Japanese Peony (Paeonia suffruticosa) is also an early bloomer.

The Chinese Peony (Paeonia lactiflora) will soon fill our neighbourhood with its pink blossoms.

She was only the gardener’s daughter…

The Tulip, a Turkish wildflower, became a European craze at the very beginning of the Seventeenth Century. The soils of Holland proved ideal for growing the bulbs and the Dutch the ideal middlemen in a trade that for four decades saw prices spiral skywards until the great Tulip Bubble burst in 1637. A review in The New Republic recommends Anne Goldgar’s book TULIPMANIA: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age, for those with an interest to learn more of this fascinating flower which still does a brisk trade in world markets today, with the Dutch still the world’s tulip middlemen.

Here in Marianivka there are two tulip seasons for two distinct types of tulips. Mid-April when the big bright coloured reds, yellows and oranges bloom and then in mid-May when smaller fancier tulips come into flower. We have a couple rows of red tulips and this week dug a few of the fancy ones from an abandoned dacha site where they are literally growing wild. We will plant them this fall and hope for a good catch and a very colourful tulip bed in a couple of years.

Two Birthdays

My oldest two celebrate their birthdays May 25 and 26, born two years and one day apart. As usual, I am not there to help celebrate but I am there in spirit, at least.

You are wonderful kids. I love you very much and miss you very much. I wish you both all the best on your birthday: love of family and friends, good health, a sense of purpose in the world, a sense of accomplishment at the end of most days, peace in your heart and God's love resting on you always. Happy Birthday.

Love

Dad

Painted Arches

Well, the paint didn’t run after three fairly good rains so I guess it is safe to post the results. My plan is to eventually paint all the red brick trim to blue grey. It will take time. Especially the high stuff. Maybe I’ll hire it done.

Masha was here all after noon playing with Maxim from next door. Outside all is mud so they go out long enough to mud up their shoes, then come back in.

Speaking of rain, yesterday we went to the farmers market located near a grocery store and near an automatic teller. It was clouding up with lightning and thunder so we knew we were in for it. Tanya had to go to the market to buy eggs and then to the grocery store for some other stuff. She always takes a while in the market. After taking 5 minutes at the “Bankomat” I got back to the car just as it began to pour buckets. Being the thoughtful husband I drove over close to the market entrance so if Tanya had to make a run for it in the rain she would not have far to go. I tried to phone my new location to her but no answer.

Of course she had already left the market and gone to the grocery store so I was actually farther away from her. When the rain subsided slightly, she ventured out and I am gone. She found me but was some damp when she got to the car door. She says there is a saying in Russian that should be my motto as it fits perfectly. “I wanted to do better but I did the same as always”.

It’s my Wild Iris, Rose

The Iris grows wild on the Asian steppes or grasslands. Iris is an indicator of over grazing as it grows thickly where the grass has been abused. I have seen this frequently in Inner Mongolia, China and last year when we were in Mongolia. The above picture was taken near Abakan on the hills over looking the former site of the village of Tanya’s early childhood home in Khakasia Republic, Russia.

Iris is quite popular in flower beds in Marianivka with a wider variety of colours than I had ever seen before. There are short dark blue ones which bloom with the early tulips and then in early May, the tall ones start blooming, beginning with dark blue and then gradually all the other colours. Our yellow tulips are just starting but they are very late this year.

On a warm summer’s evening

Last evening, Tanya and I walked around the yard and garden, checking on what needs weeding (the orchard and flower beds which are my chore) and what needs watering (everything soon) and what the bugs are eating (cabbages and beets, which I sprayed for Flea Beetles today). We checked to see how the fruit is coming on the trees. The cherry trees are bending to touch the ground under the weight. The apricot tree, which must be 15 meters high is loaded with apricots already the size of large grapes and the apple trees are showing the beginnings of a good crop of apples.

Gardening seems to be a full time occupation for villagers. From morning until evening, people are out planting and transplanting or grubbing with a hoe. They have huge gardens and only the plots near their homes get more than rain water, except at transplanting time. The soil around us is dark brown clay that bakes hard as a rock after a rain or a watering. The soil must be stirred with a hoe between the rows each time to keep it loose. A heavy rain just after planting can make the ground too hard for tiny sprouts to come through. Then when they are up, Flea Beetles eat the cabbages and Colorado Potato Beetles destroy the potatoes. Every gardener must have a sprayer to keep the bugs under control.

Then we sat on the front step in the cool of the evening, surrounded by the smell of our several dozen petunia plants. The evening is quiet except for the incessant barking of dogs and our friendly neighbourhood cuckoo bird that intermittently cuckoos several dozen times without stopping. At 8:00 pm the cows come home from pasture, where they have been since 6:00 am. There are about 7 or 8 cattle from around our area and 3 of them come past our house. The puppies are interested but do not bark or make any fuss. The cows are of either Russian Black and White or Red Steppe breeding. Red Steppe cows are descendants of German red cattle brought by the Mennonites to Ukraine in about 1770. The cattle are starting to flesh out after 6 weeks on grass; their hair smooth and shiny and from the looks of them are pretty good milk cows.

When the cattle are first put out to grass in the spring, they are thin enough to brand two at a time using carbon paper. And no wonder. Winter feed is cut with a scythe and carried home in sacks. Haying starting last week, to cut enough for next winter’s supply. The sacks might be carried on one’s back or on the back of a bicycle or several piled on a hand cart, but it is all hand labour. Farms may be mechanized but not the subsistence villager. Possibly that accounts for the popularity of milking goats, of which there are quite a few around here. It takes much less feed to keep a goat than a cow.

In some rural villages i.e. farther from urban centres than Marianivka, from what I have seen over the past 10 years, villagers will farm a few hectares and have horse drawn plows, mowers, rakes and wagons, but I have not seen any horses around here. Working up the gardens in early spring and late fall is done by hiring a small tractor and plow/cultivator/harrows.